Tuesday, June 23, 2009

When we wrote about a rare showing of Max Orphuls' Lola Monteslast year, we didn't think this intimate and epic - and painstakingly restored - 1955 film would be back so soon, but you have three more chances to see it, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 6:00 and 8:15 p.m., today, Wednesday, June 24th and 6:00 p.m. Thursday the 25th. It's on your way home from work; don't miss it. Courtesans and circuses, irresistible beauties, Bavarian kings, revolution and Franz Liszt - my take on this amazing, visually ravishing film - and the dramatic story behind it - here.You can see another Orphuls masterpiece, The Earrings of Madame de . . , with Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio De Sica, Saturday, the 27th, at 3:00 p.m. and Thursday, July 2nd, at 6:00 p.m.

A film I haven't seen, but that is being called "a mesmerizing and eloquent essay" is Of Time and the City, from director Terence Davies, whose haunting, unforgettable The Long Day Closes knocked me on my ass in 1992. Of Time and the City is a return to the Liverpool of Closes and Davies' youth, "a love song and a eulogy" and his first documentary. "I wanted to cut it as if it were fiction," says Davies in an interview which you can view here. The film is also in its last two days at the Siskel, 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, 6:15 on Thursday.

About Me

. . . writings on architecture have appeared in the Chicago Reader, Metropolis Magazine, the Harvard Design Magazine, and the backs of discarded gum wrappers.
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